The bodies of motor vehicles usually include multiple outer skin parts, which can be part of a supporting structure of the body or serve to cover the same. For various reasons, such outer skin parts are not mounted directly abutting one another but their visible parts are in each case spaced from one another by joints of several millimeters width, one of the outer skin parts having an apron which engages into the interior of the vehicle body where it projects under an edge region bordering the joint.
Usually, a motor vehicle body is painted by spraying after the assembly. When first and second outer skin part are to be painted differently, in particular in different colors, one of the outer skin parts, which is already painted, has to be covered during the painting of the other skin part. Such a cover cannot be placed in the joint not only because of the large amount of work connected with this but because such a cover would prevent the formation of a closed coat of paint on the apron and thus not offer effective corrosion protection. Consequently, paint can enter the joint during both painting steps. On the other hand it is not desirable either that a transition between the various paint applications is visible in the joint. In order to conceal such a transition, a screen can be mounted in the joint but when, in order to achieve a positively joined anchoring of the screen in the joint, one of the outer skin parts has to be detached again, this brings with it a substantial amount of work and the risk of damaging the fresh paintwork.